


love has obtained for [me all] the brightness and beauty of the sun

by politicalmamaduck



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Alternate Universe - Tattoos, F/F, Femslash SW Challenge, Slow Burn, Soulmate-Identifying Marks
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-20
Updated: 2016-11-20
Packaged: 2018-09-01 04:43:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 5,727
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8608438
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/politicalmamaduck/pseuds/politicalmamaduck
Summary: Captain Phasma is sent back down to Jakku to retrieve a droid after FN-2187's defection. Under the blazing sun, she discovers much more than a droid in the desert sands.





	1. Chapter One

**Author's Note:**

> Title from Sappho fragment 58; written for Femslash SW's first challenge on Tumblr!

The sand on Jakku was slowing her down, and the sun was blinding. The world had turned to various shades of bleached tans, the color of morning gruel — except harsher in the stark light of day.

Of all places, she had not wanted to return to Jakku. It was as if the harsh light illuminated all of her mistakes. She still felt a pit in her stomach each time she remembered FN-2187’s betrayal.

If only she could have predicted it, so many things would have been so different….

There was nothing she could do about it now; one could not change the past, one could only learn from it and grow.

She would not fail the next time.

She remembered how proud she was the first time she put on her new chromium armor. Draped with her command cape, she felt powerful and strong in a way she hadn’t before. It was an honor to wear it. 

_ Force, it’s so hot here. _

She stopped for just a moment to remove her helmet and wipe some of the sweat off her brow.  _ A stormtrooper never removes their helmet without leave _ . Her armor had a cooling unit, but even so she could feel the sun beating down overhead and baking the interminable seas of sand that surrounded her.

How did all these beings survive here for so long? She much preferred the stark, cold, clean lines of space and her small quarters on the  _ Finalizer _ to the heat and the wide open space of Jakku.

The sun marking on Phasma’s back suddenly came to her mind; it had been there since she was born, and she hadn’t given it much thought since she was a young girl. She knew that the mark denoted her soulmate; the one to whom her life belonged would have the same mark, though not necessarily in the same place. She had grown up at her mother's knee, hearing tales about star-crossed lovers fighting for their soulmates. That was before she had been taken away by the First Order, and in many ways the Order had become her soulmate. She lamented the mark for a time; not everyone had one, and once she began to rise through the ranks of the Order she knew it would be nigh impossible for her to encounter her soulmate. Since she had chosen to devote her life to the Order and focus on her path she had hardly spared it a thought. 

But with the sun beating down on her from overhead, sweat dripping down her brow and sand scuffing her beautiful armor, she couldn’t help but think of the mysterious mark on her back. She had ignored it for so long that she hadn’t realized how the sun hadn’t played much of a part in her life at all. She had spent nearly all of her life aboard various ships. Her placement on the  _ Finalizer _ was an honor, and  it showed the rest of the First Order that one could rise through the stormtrooper ranks to obtain such prominence. Phasma couldn’t necessarily say that she enjoyed working with General Hux, who was a bit too pompous and arrogant for her tastes, but she didn’t mind the esoteric Kylo Ren as much. She had to stifle a laugh on more than one occasion when she heard about the Master of the Knights of Ren waking the general up at odd hours with demands regarding training space and equipment requisitions for his Knights. 

Everything had been going swimmingly until FN-2187’s defection with the Resistance prisoner in tow. She had been sent down here personally to see to their reclamation, as well as that of a BB unit astromech droid containing the map that Kylo Ren so desperately wanted. 

She would not fail. She would return the fugitives to the  _ Finalizer _ , or they would be dispatched in the process. She had not planned on the shuttle containing her troops crashing in the Jakku wasteland. She had managed to eject herself in time, but many of her finest warriors had been lost in the crash. She did not waste time digging through the wreckage for survivors; she had a job to do.  _ She would not fail _ . Phasma never failed.

...

The woman known as Rey toiled away in the desert sands day after day. She worked long hours in the heat and dust for little gain; she certainly would never be able to escape the hellish desert landscape without any money. Even so, leaving Jakku was not a possibility she had considered; she waited and worked, day after day, hoping that her family would return for her. Marking each successive day on the wall of her overturned AT-AT home became a nightly ritual — Rey’s way of attending a religious service or meditation. 

Each night when she carved a line into her wall, she begged the powers or spirits or religious deities of the galaxy for her life to change. She ate her dinner and  then sat outside when she could, wishing on the stars and hoping that one day she would be able to travel to all of them. It comforted her to know that many of those stars were powerful suns with many planets orbiting them. Rey had a sun marking on the inside of her left thigh. It had always been there, as long as she could remember. She had heard traders and star pilots passing through Niima Outpost telling tall tales about soulmates and soulmate markings before, but she never truly believed that her sun would correspond to anyone else. It just was, existing with her as strongly as the stars in the night sky did and the rays of the Jakku sun beat down on her during the day. 

Rey thought that this evening would pass much the same as any other. She carved her day line into the wall, ate her dinner, and looked up at the sky, imagining herself flying away, her loved ones by her side. 

Instead, she heard the anguished cries of an astromech droid trying to escape a scavenger’s clutches. Grabbing her trusty staff, she set out to investigate. The droid was unlike any other she had seen in person before—a BB unit, orange and white, and irrepressibly cute, she hated to admit. 

She reluctantly allowed the droid to return home with her that night, and she learned it called itself BB-8. 

 

The next morning, she set out for Niima Outpost with the droid in tow. It was seeking a way to find its master, a star pilot on some sort of mission. Rey was eyeing up which characters looked less unsavory than others to approach regarding help for the droid when shots erupted around her. TIE fighters whizzed by, metallic screams echoing through the barren desert. The fighters were seemingly right overhead, tearing about frenetically as if bees in a mating dance.

Rey ducked and dodged as the outpost started collapsing around her and the scavengers took flight. BB-8 managed to keep up with her, but she wasn’t entirely sure how. The little droid was feisty, and Rey wanted to make sure it made it onto its destination safely. 

They were running and running, and Rey wasn’t paying much attention to where until she realized the screeching of the TIE fighters had dulled and it was her own heartbeat she was hearing pounding in her head. She stopped to breathe, BB-8 rolling up alongside her and beeping inquisitively. 

“I think we’ve lost them,” she said, panting. Putting her hand above her eyes, she surveyed their surroundings. They had made it farther than she would have thought. With no water, though, it would be a rough journey back home.  _ Better to start early than wait and become prey to whatever is lying in wait _ , she remembered an old woman scavenger telling her when she was a little girl. It was a lesson Rey had learned well. 

“Let’s head home,” she said to the droid, who beeped excitedly back at her. “We’ll try again tomorrow to get you on a ship home.”

The TIE fighters and scout ships had found Phasma and the wreckage, but not the elusive droid. They had also picked up the odd stormtrooper who had managed to survive the crash along the way, which pleased Phasma, but they still had a job to do. It was still interminably hot, but at least she had the small reprieve of being onboard one of the smaller scout ships that had been sent to the surface to retrieve the droid. ‘Troopers were being sent out on all the vectors the droid could have possibly traveled from the destroyed village. There were also teams interviewing the riffraff at what passed for an outpost, Niima, on the other side of the Goazon Badlands. Phasma was becoming all too familiar with the Jakku landscape. They would find it, sooner or later.

They had also found the wreckage of what looked to be the fighter stolen by the Resistance prisoner and FN-2187. There were no indications either had survived. She headed back out into the sun, toward a point that was pinging on the scanners as being a possible point of habitation. It was small, and out of the typical sight and vector, but Phasma wanted to leave no stone unturned. With the shipwreck, troops couldn’t be spared, so she headed out alone, traveling as quickly as she could with a huge jug of water strapped to her back. She would not be taking any chances. Her blaster was charged and her armor cleaned, though that wouldn’t last long in the desert sands. She would check in with the teams every hour on the hour. The longer they remained on Jakku, the more furious the Supreme Leader would become. Time was of the essence, especially considering the importance of the information the droid held, if Kylo Ren were to be believed. 

Phasma trudged along in the sand, the sun glinting off her armor, willing that the Force would bring her closer to the droid. 


	2. Chapter Two

Rey and BB-8 were halfway through their journey back around toward Rey’s home when the hunger pangs started to kick in. She willed herself to ignore it; being hungry was nothing new. The worst had been when she was trapped inside during a sandstorm for days with no portions. She could get through a few hours, though it was unfortunate that they had to take the long way around to avoid passing through Niima Outpost again. Rey did not want to consider what those fighters meant, or what they had been after. It certainly was not her parents returning to take her home after all these years. To pass the time, she asked BB-8 to tell her about its master and its mission, though it steadfastly insisted that it was classified and that its master would be on his way to retrieve it soon. Rey was amused by the stubborn little droid.

They were that much closer to home, Rey distracted by BB-8’s distracting chatter, when they saw something metallic glinting in the distance. It was strange, far too small to be a ship, but large enough to be noticed from afar.

“Shhh, BB, look at that.” The droid let out one last low inquisitive boop, looking up at Rey with what she would deem concern had it been human.

The strange metallic glint seemed to be moving. Rey narrowed her eyes, wishing she had a pair of binoculars with her. She could not make out what the glint was from the distance, but whatever it was, it hadn’t been there this morning. She had a queer feeling, an upset in her stomach that she knew had nothing to do with the hunger pangs. This couldn’t be good.

She and BB-8 continued on their journey, carefully and quietly, hoping that they were too far away to be noticed.

…

Phasma stopped to check in with her team at the makeshift command center. Whichever idiot they had left in charge there was blathering on and on about vectors and angles and unimportant nonsense, creating excuses as to why they hadn’t found the droid yet. She was rolling her eyes underneath her helmet when her wrist scanner reported movement to the southeast. It was too far away to tell for certain, but there appeared to be a human and a droid headed directly toward the same point Phasma was heading toward.

 _It’s too good to be true_ , she thought to herself. _Could it be_? She scarcely allowed herself to believe that her instincts had served her so well.

She switched off her comm, took a deep swig of water, and redoubled her pace.

_Long live the First Order._

…

The glimmer was definitely moving closer toward them. Toward home. Rey was really starting to become nervous. _I have a bad feeling about this_. But for the droid’s sake, she couldn’t allow herself to give in to fear or despair.

She started to jog lightly, BB-8 rolling alongside her. As they drew closer, Rey was having trouble believing her eyes.

The glint was a figure. A person. Armored in chrome. A stormtrooper.

…

Phasma marched onward despite the heat and the sand. Sure enough, a young woman and a droid came up on a viewscope. Of course the droid had obtained help. How did the Resistance manage to have so many contacts on Jakku before them? The girl would be useful, of that Phasma had no doubt. She would not tell anyone of her discovery; she would bring the girl and the droid back on her own. No one else could fail her this way. She would not be betrayed again; FN-2187 had been enough.

The young woman looked as though she were unarmed except for a large staff. Phasma could handle that. Keeping the droid from escaping again would be a bigger problem. She double checked that her blaster was set to stun and continued onward.

…

There was no way the chrome person hadn’t seen them by now. They were on an inevitable collision course, Rey knew. The sand shimmering in front of her without her visor or goggles made it difficult for her to see, but she knew the figure had to be armed. With armor like that, they could be capable of anything. BB-8 beeped at her, saying that the figure was scanning as human. Beyond that, it didn’t know anything about the glittering apparition. “I suppose we’ll find out,” Rey said to the droid, and bit her lower lip. She was starting to become more nervous. It would be difficult for her to defend them both against one so heavily armored. None of the Jakku scavengers could afford much protection, and even if they could, it would be nigh useless in the desert for long periods of time. Whoever this person was, not only were they wealthy, they couldn’t possibly have intended to stay on Jakku for long. Rey hoped that would be the case.

Hours or minutes could have passed; Rey seemed to have lost all sense of time before the confrontation finally occurred. The shiny person was before her, and they were even more intimidating in close proximity. They stood at least a head taller than Rey, a red-trimmed black armorweave cape fluttering in the wind behind them, and carried a large, also chrome-plated blaster, which was pointed directly at her.

“Stop, in the name of the First Order.” The officer was a female. That was surprising to Rey.

They stopped.

“You must not be too familiar with Jakku,” Rey replied. “Especially in your special armor. The First Order hasn’t been here before. The laws of the desert hold sway here. You’re lucky a scavenger hasn’t attacked you by now and tried to sell you for parts.”

The chrome officer appeared to be unfazed by this, though it was hard to tell through the helmet.

“Your impertinence will not help you, scavenger. That droid contains something that rightfully belongs to the First Order. You will turn it over to me and come with me for questioning.”

Rey bristled at this.

“This droid is not yours; it has its own master. It’s not mine either; I have protected it from the scum on this planet, but I know nothing of what it contains. I suggest you move on with your search and leave Jakku before the sand swallows you whole or you have to face scavengers who are more impertinent than me.” She tried to place a force behind her words that she didn’t know she possessed. This chrome woman would not take BB-8 from her. Rey had no part to play in the galactic conflict, but she wouldn’t allow these people to come to her planet and think they owned every grain of sand and every scrap of metal.

And BB-8 was worth more than a scrap of metal pilfered from a long forgotten wreck of a Star Destroyer with officers long dead and gone.

Rey felt a sudden chill up her spine, though she didn’t know why. There was no wind stirring the sand around them, and though much of the day had passed, the sun still glowed around them, glinting off the female’s armor.

The officer had not yet moved or responded to Rey’s show of bravado, nor had BB-8 made a single boop.

And then she fired.

Rey ducked, falling hard into the sand. “Run home, BB-8,” she said, knowing the officer would hear her anyway. “I’ll take care of her.”

She rolled over and swung out with her staff, not daring to look at where the droid had gone.

…

The droid was accompanied by a young woman, one who was lithe, with not an ounce of body fat, and altogether too pretty for this godforsaken wasteland.

Phasma would not be distracted by the girl’s looks, nor her cheeky bravado.

All the same, she didn’t want to have to fight the girl. It would be a waste of time and energy. But of course, nothing could be easy.

She easily dodged the girl’s staff and aimed once more at her middle, hoping the stun would take her down. But they were too close together for her to aim properly, and the girl once again dodged her shot. She dropped her blaster and attempted to grab the girl’s huge staff, missing it slightly and wincing as it connected with her shoulder. That would certainly leave a bruise.

She backed up a bit and assessed the girl. It was hard to predict her fighting style. She obviously hadn’t been trained in any sort of technique. Assuming she had grown up on Jakku, it was hard to believe she was educated at all, let alone on the finer points of how to fight with maximum efficiency and damage done to one’s opponent while expending minimal energy the way Phasma had been.

But the girl was holding her own. She swung her heavy staff with ease, and was acting as if she had been in close hand to hand combat before.

Phasma tried once more to wrench the staff out of her hands, but as with stunning her, that strategy did not work. This time she grabbed the girl’s arm and pulled her close. But of course her opponent would not surrender easily. The large staff connected with her side with a resounding _thwap_. That too would leave a bruise, and weakened Phasma’s grip on the girl’s left arm. The girl drove her shoulder into Phasma’s chestplate, knocking them both to the ground and spraying sand in the air around them.

 _This did not go as planned_ , thought Phasma, as the girl straddled her and held her staff to her throat.

“You will come with me,” said the girl, anger flashing through her deep brown eyes. “Your special armor and blaster could not save you. I told you, the desert laws held sway here.”

Phasma sighed, not audibly through her helmet’s voice modulator. Her side was starting to throb.

 _This could be used to my advantage_ , she thought. Surely the girl would take her back to her dwelling...and that was where the droid was supposed to have gone. And the girl didn’t seem the killing type.

“Make one false move and you’ll regret it,” the girl continued, glaring at her even more fiercely than before. Rey planted her staff on Phasma’s chest and clambered up from her straddling position. No longer holding Phasma down, she quickly backed up to grab the abandoned chrome blaster, pointing it directly at Phasma’s head.

“Come on, then,” she said, not taking her eyes off Phasma for a moment.

Phasma felt warm and tingly all over, and she knew it had nothing to do with the fight or the desert heat.

The girl would definitely be an unnecessary distraction.

…

Somehow Rey had managed to take down the chrome woman. She was exhausted from running all day and fighting off the much taller and heavier woman, especially in all that armor, and desperately curious despite herself to see the woman underneath. What kind of woman rose so high up in the ranks of the First Order? With the armor and the cape she was wearing, she had to be incredibly powerful.

Though Rey avoided violence whenever she could, she kept the chrome woman’s blaster pointed at her at all times, hoping she wouldn’t notice how her shaking hand and unsteadiness of breath. Thankfully, they didn’t have much farther to go to reach Rey’s downed AT-AT home, and hopefully BB-8 would have managed to find something to put together for dinner. Hopefully. Rey thought she might have some nutritional paste laying around.

This day had not at all gone as planned.

They arrived at Rey’s dwelling as the sun was setting. She paused for a moment to take it in. She so rarely got to see a sunset; usually she was either home after dark or inside resting before the sun went down, depending on how the scavenging had gone that day.

After allowing herself just that moment, she gestured with the blaster for the chrome woman to enter, never taking her eyes off her. BB-8 beeped inquisitively from inside.

“I told you I’d take care of her,” Rey said in response. “She’s our guest now, and she’s going to tell us exactly why she’s here and why she wanted you.”


	3. Chapter Three

Phasma had been right: the spot on the scanners was the desert woman’s small dwelling. It was a downed AT-AT. Resourceful—she had to give her credit for that. Inside, she was accosted by the droid, who beeped forcefully at her. She had been right about that too, and briefly heard the Supreme Leader’s ghostly voice in her head. _Your instincts serve you well, Phasma_ , he had told her when she was promoted. It had been a source of pride for Phasma ever since, to have been so noticed and recognized by the Supreme Leader.

And she would earn his pride once more when she escaped into the Jakku night with the droid. She just had to figure out how to incapacitate both the girl and the droid in such a way that the droid would not be damaged.

“Anything to eat, BB?” asked the girl, and Phasma turned around to fully look at her once more. She looked exhausted. Her skin was still flushed despite its tan from the exertion of their fight and the trek across the sands. Phasma praised the Maker once more for her helmet, something she had done more frequently as she aged and realized its utility. When she was a girl, she had hated hiding her face behind a mask, looking identical to everyone else around her. Now, she appreciated being able to observe without beings noticing where her eyes were. She was also blushing underneath the helmet at the way the girl was looking down at the droid with care and respect, her hands on her hips as if grounding herself.

Phasma was startled, an unusual situation for her, when the girl thrust a bowl with a bit of nutritional paste and water in it at her.

“It’s not much, but it’s something,” she said.

Phasma was completely taken aback. The girl had turned her back already though, swirling the paste in the water with her index finger and then tipping the bowl into her mouth.

Phasma looked down at her bowl. She was weary and thirsty, and knew she should accept the girl’s offering. She was wary of removing her helmet.  

The girl turned back to her, as if once more taking her measure. Phasma felt as though she could see right through her. It sent a chill down her spine despite the heat. Her back ached, as if twinges were radiating outward from the sun marking on it. She rolled her shoulders, forcing the pain down. She would need to have her side where she took the girl’s staff blow examined once she escaped with the droid.

The girl continued to stare at her, seemingly working something out in her head. “Why Jakku? Why has the First Order now become interested in a backwater where ships went to die?”

“Why should I tell you?” Phasma asked, genuinely curious as to what the girl wanted and intended with her. She would not lose her advantage. This girl was nothing to her, and she had years of training in survival, fighting, and interrogation. She would let her think she had the upper hand then make her move. Lull her into a false sense of security, then escape with the droid. She would prove how she earned her title, name, and armor once more.

“You’re not exactly in a position to argue right now,” the girl said, wiping dust off her staff as if to underscore her statement. “If you hadn’t noticed, your fancy armor doesn’t intimidate me. Who are you, anyway?”

Phasma smiled underneath her helmet. _Good. Let her be unafraid_.

Rising to her full height, chin up and shoulders back like a proper ‘trooper, she proudly stated, “I am Phasma, Captain of the First Order. You would do well not to underestimate me. And who are you, desert scavenger?”

The girl looked down to her feet briefly. “I’m no one,” she said, a shade more softly than her bravado of a minute before. “My name is Rey,” she said.

“Well, Rey of Jakku,” Phasma said. “Now that we know each other’s names, let us negotiate. I want the droid. I can offer you much from the First Order’s resources. Food, wealth, shelter—whatever you should wish, name it and it will be done.” Perhaps the girl could be easily reasoned with. Another voice at the back of Phasma’s mind asked her why she didn’t just reach over, grab her blaster back, shoot the girl, take the droid, and run. There was something unsettling running through Phasma’s core. She was disobeying everything she had ever been taught and had taught her troops in turn. What kind of spell did this girl cast over her?

“I don’t want anything you can give me, thank you,” the girl said, almost both bemusedly and with a twinge of regret. “What is so special about this droid?” she asked, gesturing at it. It looked up at the girl and whistled lowly, swiveling its dome to look at Phasma.

“Nothing I can tell you,” Phasma replied, wanting to see the girl’s response.

Unsurprisingly, she looked frustrated. Her brow furrowed, and her eyes seemed to flash in the shadowed AT-AT as the day was turning to night.

“Then why should I turn it over to you?” she asked, glaring at Phasma.

That had not been the question Phasma had expected. In her interrogations, prisoners rarely asked why. They begged for mercy, or started talking nonsense, or yelled and screamed in frustration in pain. This girl had been unexpected in more ways than one, and Phasma had to adapt yet again.

Slowly, so as to not startle the girl, she reached up and pressed the catch on her helmet, taking it off slowly. Blinking and looking down to adjust her eyes without her visor, she looked up and across the room at the girl—Rey. Somehow, she was even prettier without the filtering, and Phasma immediately cursed herself for taking off her helmet and thinking such a thought in the first place.

Rey was clearly taken aback, which had been exactly Phasma’s aim. She opened her mouth to say something, then closed it again. She met Phasma’s eyes, and Phasma willed herself not to blink.

Time seemed to stand still for another moment, then Phasma broke the spell by picking up her bowl and drinking her paste and water. She had to earn Rey’s trust. Why, she could not say. But the voice at the back of her head she trusted told her this was the right thing to do. She was trusting her instincts.

“You’re not at all what I expected,” Rey said, and Phasma couldn’t help but chuckle. “Nor were you,” she replied. “I’ve never gone down so badly in a sparring match before,” she couldn’t help admitting.

Rey smiled at that. “You’ve probably never fought anyone like me before.”

“No, I can’t say that I have,” Phasma said, feeling a pang of regret for the rough life the woman in front of her must have led. Phasma was not ordinarily a reflective woman; she rarely spared thoughts for anyone other than her troops. Most of her waking hours were devoted to strategy and training, in addition to endless rounds of patrolling whichever base on which she was located at the moment. Regret and reflection were not her constant companions, unlike Lord Ren, who seemed perpetually surrounded by shadows and demons of his own making. This girl—Rey—too seemed to be cloaked in an aura of loss and of fate’s dark whims. Something about this whole mission had made Phasma maudlin for the first time in her life.

Rey suddenly smiled for the first time, and Phasma felt a rush of emotion run through her, as if the sun had peeked through a swirl of clouds.

“Why don’t you sit?” she asked. “I’m sorry there’s not much space in here. It’s always been just me, and I’m really only here to sleep and shelter from sandstorms.” Phasma nodded, and clambered down to the floor, folding her long limbs in on herself. She was thankful her armor masked the sounds of her joints creaking. Despite her intense physical fitness, she was getting older, and hated being reminded of her body’s limitations. Rey sat across from her, the droid once more beeping lowly in the background. “Go ahead and power down, BB,” she said. “Captain Phasma and I have much to discuss.” At this she fixed Phasma with another fierce stare, at which Phasma couldn’t help but look away. Taking off her helmet really had been an unfortunate decision.

Rey was still intently focused on Phasma when she suddenly asked “Why don’t you take off the rest of your armor? That looks very uncomfortable.”

Phasma was beginning to reply that she couldn’t possibly remove her armor, her pride and protection, when she caught the girl’s eyes drifting down her body in what she could only realize to be admiration, and—perhaps, if Phasma were being honest with herself—a bit of desire.

The warmth Phasma felt spreading through her had nothing to do with the sunlit day’s exertions, and she started slowly pulling off her thick, heavy chrome suit, piece by piece.

She pretended not to notice Rey watching with rapt attention. She turned her back to the young woman, wishing desperately she could hide the flush spreading over her face. As she pulled her breastplate over her head, her black body shirt caught and almost pulled off as well, revealing most of Phasma’s back underneath her body and undershirts to Rey. She managed to extricate herself and sharply whirled around at Rey’s deep intake of breath. She smoothed her shirts down in front, flattening them down as best she could.

Rey was looking up at her with what Phasma could only describe as shock and awe.

“Something wrong?” she couldn’t help but ask, and Rey shook her head, shakily standing up and looking down at her legs.

…

_Her soulmate._

The chrome captain of the First Order she had fought so fiercely that afternoon was her soulmate. The sun marking on her back was exactly the same as the one on Rey’s thigh. She was cold and hot and shaking all over, and wanted to scream and cry out of happiness and frustration and the overwhelming feelings that were taking over her mind and body.

She couldn’t speak and couldn’t look at the woman before her.

Her hands shook as she forced herself to look up at the tall, icily beautiful woman before her and started to pull her trousers down to reveal the sun marking on her inner thigh. She looked down at it, then back up at Phasma with tears in her eyes that she could not hide. Rey was not one for great displays of emotion; she did not have the time or the energy to wallow in her frequent misery or frustration. But this moment was unlike anything she had ever dreamed or concocted for herself about meeting her soulmate when she was trapped in her dwelling during a sandstorm.

Phasma looked at her strangely as she was undoing her trousers, but gasped when Rey turned her thigh toward her, into the light. Rey took a step toward her soulmate, then grasped her hand and held it to her heart. She reached her other hand up to touch Phasma’s cheek, which was flushed pink against her pale skin. Phasma smiled, and Rey knew the truth in her smile.

Phasma reached down to her, and her lips were as soft as they were sweet. The night stretched out before them, but neither woman noticed, having so much to discuss and discover about the other. A kiss here, a lingering touch there, a sigh and a moan became their language as the stars twinkled above them.

She awoke the next morning entwined in her soulmate’s arms, the sun streaming through the downed AT-AT. She smiled, truly appreciating the sun not for the first or last time.  

**Author's Note:**

> Comments and constructive feedback always appreciated. Much love as always to my best friend Amanda for her edits and comments. You can find me at politicalmamaduck.tumblr.com!


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